31
95 Comments

How many domains do you own?

I came across a tweet thread where I saw many makers claiming to have 30+ domains. Curious to know is it possible to manage so many domains?

I have around 4 domains and the most recent one is https://nocodebriefs.com/
Interested to know how many you guys have!

  1. 7

    Easily have over 200 domains. Most are squatted not for sale, but ideas that never came to fruition.

    1. 2

      Do you ever sell them or rent them out?

      1. 2

        Wait.. you can rent out a domain?

        1. 1

          Yes you can. Fairly common for higher end premium .com domains now since they are so expensive. Several services offer this.

          Some that come to mind are Epik.com, Venture.com, and Escrow.com has this ability too.

        2. 1

          I would not recommend renting a domain ... the domain owner can change the DNS at any time.

          1. 1

            That's true. Although I feel like that's a solvable problem. You could introduce a trusted 3rd party to take control of the domain + DNS and handle the payments between the renter and landlord domainlord.

            1. 1

              A name is just a name and, therefore, a domain is just a domain. A good business will work with other names. If you rent a domain, however, the owner of the domain will believe that their name is a highly valuable component of the business and, therefore, believe that they are entitled to a large share of it. Worse, they'll have the power to charge an increasingly high proportion of the profits or force you to go through the courts to protect your business. Why give a third party that level of control over your business? Run away ...

              1. 1

                So you are saying that the only option is to own the domain.

                OK. And what do you think of such a process which should ensure that all parties are satisfied.

                The domain owner states that the domain is for rent.
                The buyer finds the domain and rents it out.
                The domain will transfer from the hands of the domain owner to the hands of a third party. Third party will ensure that the renter pays the rent properly, and that he has access to DNS records. A third party would also ensure that the domain does not expire.
                The domain would be in the hands of a third party until the total amount paid for the rent did not reach the buyout price. The rental price and the buyout prices cannot be changed.

                If the renter ceases to pay the rent, the domain would return to the hands of the flood owner.

                1. 1

                  Sounds great. Do you trust the third party to not go out of business, to pay their bills and/or not steal your domain? I seem to recall people trusting bitcoin wallet companies too ...

                  People, the name/domain is not what makes your business great. What makes your business great is delivering value to customers, giving them great service and so on.

                  If you give your customers great value and service, you can run that business from giganticturd.com and it will still work.

                  (And if giganticturd.com is still available, I'm happy to register and rent it to you ...).

                2. 1

                  Great explanation. You would have to consider some risks. If the renter uses the domain to spam and gets it black listed, you loose value.

                  I'd force the renter to buy an insurance to cover the cost of the domain name in case they are careless and loose control of the domain to some hackers or forget to renew it.

                3. 1

                  You have described exactly how a domain lease agreement works.

                  1. 1

                    Nice. So there is a way how to rent a domain and it's normal.

                    1. 1

                      The best registrar to use in my experience is Epik.com. They have a lot of flexible ways to rent-to-own and they are an ICANN accredited registrar so they can handle the whole transaction.

              2. 1

                If you can rent a house or office, which is also essential for business, then you can also rent a domain. It's just a matter of perspective. What's more, it can be done so that the tenant of the domain has full control over the DNS and also ensure that it is not possible to move the domain to another owner. If someone wants to give a domain for rent and if someone wants to become a tenant of the domain, then both parties must agree to defined conditions in the contract to avoid any doubts, such as increasing the rental price. In addition, to guarantee credibility for both parties, a third party must be involved to ensure that regular payments are made, that the tenant has access to DNS settings and that neither party has access to the possibility of changing the domain owner.

                1. 2

                  Similar yes, but with some extra risks that need to be taken in account. But it would be great to rent and have a stream of revenue.

                2. 1

                  I'm sure all of that is possible. But unless you're extremely careful, the domain landlord will end up with power or money which should belong to you. Or you'll be saddled with a long term rental agreement paying money every year for a business that didn't work (which you agreed to so that they wouldn't charge you too much if your business was successful). If you want to do it, go ahead but I would never, ever do it and my advice is to run away screaming. Alternatively, consider it a tax on the founders' lack of imagination - the inability to come up with a name which hasn't already been taken. Do we really think that Spotify, say, was successful because 'Spotify' is a good name for a music service? Or that Google wouldn't have been successful if the founders had chosen the name 'Bing' instead? Founders need to understand the source of their value and only 0.01% of the time is it a specific name (e.g. thesaurus.com). Everyone else can choose a different name / domain.

                  1. 1

                    the domain landlord will end up with power or money which should belong to you.

                    Of-course, that's why he/she offer his/her domain for renting - to make money. But with what power he/she can end up?

                    Or you'll be saddled with a long term rental agreement paying money every year for a business that didn't work (which you agreed to so that they wouldn't charge you too much if your business was successful).

                    If tenant of the domain goes out of the business, then he/she can release domain back to owner or buy a domain for a remaining price of buyout price.

                    Founders need to understand the source of their value and only 0.01% of the time is it a specific name

                    Having a name that describes your business and what you do is precious. With your argument logic anyone can say that when you name your business that sells handcrafted wooden furniture as Electronic Store instead of Wooden Furniture Store, that that's a good name for that business. But it is not.

                    1. 1

                      So many things can go wrong. They might forget to pay their hosting bill, for instance, and then be uncontactable to you (and you're stuffed). They might breach their contract with you and then your business is down while you chase them in court (and you're out of business). They might resell the domain you are using to a competitor and ICANN will almost certainly side with them (because their name is against the domain). They might be the Russian mob and use your domain for spam without you noticing it.

                      The single most critical piece of infrastructure in your entire online business is your domain - don't let anyone have any control over it. Use only a domain that you own.

                      (Heck - you even need to be careful who controls your IP inside your company, let alone outside - consider the Ardiuno trademark debacle: https://hackaday.com/2015/03/12/arduino-v-arduino-part-ii/)

                      Having a name that describes your business and what you do is precious.

                      For 99.99% of businesses, this is not true. Descriptive names are not trademarkable or memorable. Instead, choose a name which is unique and alludes to the business (without being a straight description of it).

                      Look at all of the top brands in the world - https://www.forbes.com/the-worlds-most-valuable-brands Not one of them is descriptive but many of them evoke something interesting or memorable. Some of them are even completely irrelevant to their business (e.g. Amazon is not called 'cheapshopping.com' and if it was, it would be a significantly less valuable brand).

                      See this for help on choosing names: https://www.martyneumeier.com/strong-vs-weak-names

                      So yes, almost all of the purely descriptive domain names are squatted by someone. If you name your business well, however, you won't be looking for a descriptive business name (and, therefore, you won't need to buy or rent a squatted domain).

              3. 1

                Great point. Don't worry, I wasn't planning on renting a domain myself. I was just curious about the concept.

                In any case, I'm glad you posted this here for others to read.

              4. 0

                Because companies can't afford the price upfront.

                You hire an experience domain attorney and the lease price is set per month.

                1. 1

                  Which indie hackers can afford an experienced domain attorney? Choose a different name/domain and save your precious money for something that will actually deliver value to your customers.

                  1. 0

                    This is a big community, I'm sure some can. :)

                    Having a good better domain/brand can instill more trust earlier. There is a lot of value to that.

                    1. 2

                      Yes, but that's based on the false belief that there's only one domain/brand that will work for your business (so you'd better buy or rent that domain).

                      That's why it's an imagination tax - if you can't imagine a different name, you'll pay the price.

                      Here's my advice to you:

                      1. Identify and test a market.
                      2. Create value for your first customers (under any name).
                      3. Make money from your first customers.
                      4. Then (and only then) think about which brand/domain you need to reach your second lot of customers.

                      Worrying about your brand, domain, logo, office, location, board or anything else before stage 4 is a complete waste of your time and money.

                      Buy the vanity domain when you have money (that you have earned from your business).

        3. 1

          Well, yeah. You can just change the DNS right? 😜

    2. 1

      man thats a lot of money spent per year hahaha

    3. 1

      how much does it cost to annually renew a portfolio of 200 domains though?

      1. 1

        By my calcs it's about $3,600 / year. Although, I don't use the cheapest domain provider around so it'd probably be a bit less. On the other hand, I'm not considering more expensive TLD's like .io so it could be more.

        In any case, for an established business that's not a lot of money if you consider the cost of paying wages to employees. It really doesn't surprise me that people buy and hold domains for the sake of it.

        1. 1

          I guess you got to compare it to maintaining real estate.

    4. 1

      This comment was deleted 4 years ago.

  2. 6

    Just looked, 22.
    I bought one this morning around 3:30am after waking from a crazy dream about owning a domain. searched for it and found it and bought it.

    1. 2

      Haha, this is actually hilarious. Are they all from a single domain provider?

    1. 1

      I was looking for "NoCodeForum" few days ago. Well done! 👍

  3. 2

    60+ It is possible to manage if you just have them listed for sale and if you have posted prices with Buy Now button. If you list without a price made public - you have to spend time to write emails and talk to people about what you sell and negotiate.
    My rules is ... domains under $10,000 USD publish the price and give them a chance to pay directly. Higher price domains negotiate in private.

    I only invest in .com, single words and natural spelling. Some .org are acceptable if they make sense as a foundation or non-profit organization. Take in account what else you can do with your money to grow before you buy domains.

    Here are a few domains I own:

    Bricks.com
    Casework.com
    ExitOptions.com
    IronWork.com
    Kinder.co
    Marvels.com
    SheetMetal.com
    Sitework.com
    StoneWork.com
    Storefronts.com
    TopSign.com

    BlackOwned.org
    CharityCup.org
    D7.org
    FreeClinic.org

    See most my domains here: www.d7domains.com

    1. 1

      @chisca you ever used venture.com to rent any of them

      1. 1

        @Perfumesample I did not use venture.com - on the surface their system is great. Rent domain and cash monthly checks! but in reality if you have a company that can afford such high rent it also means you have a powerful brand and who in the world wants to grow a big brand on a rental domain???

        I find the business model deficient and cash sales or seller finance are my only acceptable options to part with a good name.

        Another option is to develop the domain through a JV. You can get some money upfront and have some upside if the business is successful.

        Have you tried venture.com ? what is your experience?

  4. 2

    Way... too... many!

    I'm an addict! Please help me! :)

    Lots of ideas I never get around to building unfortunately.

    I've gotten much better about letting certain domains go though. I've started using a great service - NameLiquidate.com - to recoup some money on domains close to expiration.

    It's a reverse auction and you never know what some people want to buy that you have.

  5. 2

    I own about 10 domains for projects and personal use.

    Our most recent purchase was TheSocialNotework.com as a play on words, since our startup is a collaborative note-taking platform. We're planning on using it for a marketing campaign in the future.

    1. 1

      What's the annual bill for all of those?

      1. 1

        Gosh.. I think about 1850 EUR or more..mostly nl domains

        1. 1

          Wow! Do you just like buying the names just incase they're worth something one day or do you do something else with them?

          1. 1

            About 10 give me an income. The rest is empty (I had a plan for each, but no time)

            1. 1

              Man, if I had that many domains I'd at least publish the list somewhere in case someone wanted to offer me big bucks for one of them.

    2. 1

      Wtf. I'm pretty sure that's illegal ;)

  6. 2

    I have 5:

    • 2 for family and personal
    • 3 for projects, 1 that's in use

    I think that if I had >5 my wife would have me see a therapist for domain hoarding 😅

  7. 2

    Currently 5, 3 in use and 1 as a backup with a different domain ending for the mainly used one. I also once owned "www.i-want-money-com" but gave it back after a year. Currently it looks I´ll join another company that builds its business on top of about 50 domain names.

  8. 2

    I own 3 domains, 2 of which for old, no longer active projects.

  9. 2

    I think about 15 😂

    1. 1

      Wow. Now I am actually curious to find out who has the highest number of domains on IH :D

  10. 1

    well i've only one domain and it's name is " https://skullsavvy.com/ " because i have strong interest in skulls like cow, buffalo, ram, bull etc <3 <3

  11. 1

    Logged into Namecheap to check, 53 domains & I just let 5 go recently.

    I get a "bolt" of inspiration, buy the domain and then get back to real work. Its a fun easy manageable distraction :)

  12. 1

    I have 3 domains but they all point to the same domain name, i used to have many more but they never came to fruition or i sold them. I love making website and dont always have the time but i save the code from all my projects.
    Currently i own:
    Perfumesample.com
    Colognesample.com
    PerfumeSamples.com

  13. 1

    I have 23 domains. I track them using my custom excel tracker which updates the information I need automatically everytime I open. Helps a lot as I have domains from multiple registrars.

  14. 1

    Hello all.
    I have some domains on godaddy and namecheap almost 25 domains.
    All are .com
    Like
    PerPayer.com
    Bizdew.com
    Etc
    Anyone tell me how to sell faster 😂

  15. 1

    ~30, a third are in active use, a third are parked, a third are in progress.

  16. 1

    I own ~10
    Some of them expired.
    A few of the unused ones had auto-renewal on, and I only recently discovered that...😱

  17. 1

    I have 6. Can’t believe all the folks with 200+. Doesn’t that mean 2k/year in fees?

  18. 1

    Something about 20 and every have a landing page. We tried to launch them on PH to grab some traffic. BTW, almost all launches was successful

  19. 1

    Has anyone got a domain they don't use? I am working on an idea and would likely borrow it for a frw months!

    1. 1

      I have 20 and good ones, all are good and I don't know how to use

  20. 1

    2 right now remoteletter.com (newsletter) and sagunshrestha.com (personal website)

  21. 1

    Around 100 as of now :)

  22. 1

    short.so (planned to be a URL shortener, but haven't worked on it yet)
    typesafe.blog
    typesafe.news
    eyk.guru (personal, but just redirecting)

    and 5 others

  23. 1

    offdesign - Just started
    kareeba - Bought 3 years ago
    Ulrich Gero - Personal webiste,

  24. 1

    ~30. Although a bunch are just to stop people stealing names, e.g. for https://sheet2api.com I also own the .net .org .io etc.

  25. 1

    Right now 5.

    I bought Andreuzza.com because is the name of a town in Italy and my surname.

  26. 1

    4 domains
    3 in use. 1 in development.

  27. 1

    I thought I was crazy to have something like 15+, until I saw the other comments here! 😂

    Some of these are for personal use, like pradeepcep.com. Some for side projects, like bassdrum.app. Some are for ideas that I haven't built out yet.

    1. 1

      Haha, that's right. Also, I like your beautiful personal webpage for its clean and minimal UI.

    2. 1

      This comment was deleted 4 years ago.

  28. 1

    I have have only 2 at the moment

    • one for my personal website/blog
      • I have some personal projects for personal use deployed as subdomains of this one
    • one for https://amethystplatform.com

    I had a stage where I was into "get rich quick" methods and wanted to start doing affiliate marketing on a blog, and I had like two extra domains: cryptomates.com (wanted to start a cryptocurrency blog during the crypto craze) and citybreakwithme.com (wanted to start a travel destination directory with itineraries and accommodations.

  29. 1

    Hey, check our my coming soon project to host a holding page at your domains ;-)
    https://www.indiehackers.com/product/cmngsn

  30. 1

    I'm guilty of owning 18 domains. 13 of them are actually in use. The other 5 are in need of some attention. Hopefully soon!

  31. 1

    at the moment 54 😕 of which only around 10 i actively use.

    the number i own is always changing as i think of new ideas or let ideas expire as the hype fades.

    it's a money bleed. i can't just throw them away though because the ideas they represent are too good. acquiring more than i can develop... it's a problem i have, like an addiction.

  32. 1

    I own about 12 ish. A couple cool ones such as “fozy.nl” and “chris.chat”.

  33. 1

    I have 9 but 6 of those I acquired after joining indie hackers lol.

    It's kind of addictive. When you find a domain that somehow relates to an idea you've got and think, oh, it's only $18/yr.

    I've thought about trying to sell the ones I don't use but I haven't got around to it.

    1. 2

      I can absolutely relate with the addictive part. Once you start with your first domain, you will definitely keep coming back for more.

  34. 1

    I have 11 that I can recall, not including subdomains.

    • 6 for projects that are active
    • 1 personal website
    • 2 that will expire soon and I no long use
    • 2 that are aliases for other domains
  35. 1

    I have 31 domains:

    • 8 are for current, active projects
    • 5 are personal/family property
    • 3 are for nearish-term planned projects
    • 16 will be sold or rented out before they expire
  36. 1

    This comment was deleted a year ago.

  37. 1

    This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

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